It's amazing to me that people still get hung up on Leia "remembering" Padme.

Luke: Leia, do you remember your mother? Your real mother?
Leia: Just a little bit. She died when I was very young.
Luke: What do you remember?
Leia: Just images really. Feelings.

The scene doesn't imply anything that contradicts the events of ROTS. On the contrary, it supports the events of that film. Padme DID die when Leia was very young and she is very specific that her "memories" are really just "IMAGES" and "FEELINGS". It's just an indicator of her force sensitivity.

Yeah... and notice that scene comes right in the middle of that conversation where Leia learns that she has Force powers. Shouldn't be too difficult to figure it out. Oh well.

One has control over one's will. Otherwise we would all be incapable of making any decisions, even the simplest ones. We would all be marionettes on puppet strings controlled by who-knows-what. That is not at all how I believe life works.

That is very different from, say, losing one's arm in an accident that was not one's fault.

Padme was medically perfectly healthy, and decided that she didn't want to live anymore.

I asked this before and was ignored, but I'll give it another shot: does anyone have an example of "broken heart syndrome" happening to medically-healthy 27-year-olds? I have only heard of it in old people who were already weakened.

I asked this before and was ignored, but I'll give it another shot: does anyone have an example of "broken heart syndrome" happening to medically-healthy 27-year-olds? I have only heard of it in old people who were already weakened.

No, but I don't have an example of a seven feet tall, hairy creature flying space ships in the "real word" either .
I just think that - while some rules can be simply transfered from our world - the Star Wars universe works by it's own rules in a lot of ways. I wished Lucas had cut the "lost her will to live" line to make it less "controversial", but I don't think such things can be seen as exklusively "voluntary" in mythological/fantastical works of art.

I can only suspend disbelief so much, and when it comes to human behavior--lifting objects without touching them aside, I have to believe that humans in the GFFA behave and function much as they do in our world.

There is no way that I believe that Padme had no control over her own will.

I asked this before and was ignored, but I'll give it another shot: does anyone have an example of "broken heart syndrome" happening to medically-healthy 27-year-olds? I have only heard of it in old people who were already weakened.

"Broken heart syndrome, also called stress-induced cardiomyopathy or takotsubo cardiomyopathy, can strike even if you’re healthy. (Tako tsubo, by the way, are octopus traps that resemble the pot-like shape of the stricken heart.)Women are more likely than men to experience the sudden, intense chest pain — the reaction to a surge of stress hormones — that can be caused by an emotionally stressful event. It could be the death of a loved one or even a divorce, breakup or physical separation, betrayal or romantic rejection. It could even happen after a good shock (like winning the lottery.)"

I also looked into whether or not it can affect young adults and I did find this:

"Because stress cardiomyopathy is a relatively newly appreciated syndrome, we are only beginning to understand why it happens and who is most likely to get it. Most of the patients we have seen with it do not have a previous history of heart disease. It is quite clear from the available medical literature so far, however, that stress cardiomyopathy affects primarily women. In addition, it tends to occur most frequently in middle aged or elderly women (average age about 60). While it can also occur in young women and even in men, the vast majority of the patients we have seen with this are post-menopausal women. The exact reason for this is unknown, and further research will be necessary to help explain this observation."

So it can occur in young women -- it's just much less likely. I do think, though, that if one were inclined, Padmé's reaction could be explained by how extreme her situation was. She didn't just go through a divorce or breakup but instead watched everything she had worked for crumbled, been informed it was engineered by a man she trusted, watched her husband slaughter his friends and Jedi children, and then been choked by that husband and go through childbirth.

One has control over one's will. Otherwise we would all be incapable of making any decisions, even the simplest ones. We would all be marionettes on puppet strings controlled by who-knows-what. That is not at all how I believe life works.

That is very different from, say, losing one's arm in an accident that was not one's fault.

Padme was medically perfectly healthy, and decided that she didn't want to live anymore.

No. If "one has control over one's will," then losing one's will would forego that, no? Losing implies non-volition. "Will to live" is presumably some basic motivational drive necessary for life, so losing that would be non-volitional. It'd be quite silly though to just "will yourself to death"-that can't happen in real life, AFAIK.

I asked this before and was ignored, but I'll give it another shot: does anyone have an example of "broken heart syndrome" happening to medically-healthy 27-year-olds? I have only heard of it in old people who were already weakened.

I have a fairly large set of references on that topic but it's on my other computer, so I'll have to give you that list later as I don't want to do a search right now. So for now this one from the British Medical Journal will have to do--it's a review of "Faints, fits, and fatalities from emotion in Shakespeare's characters" from a medical perspective, which includes deaths-by-grief (Oddly, he forgets Queen Hermione in Cymbaline, but oh well.).http://www.bmj.com/content/333/7582/1335.full
(Click "pdf" or "easy read")

I quote:

Sudden non-violent death does occur in young people as well as older ones. Sometimes a cause is not found at autopsy, but recently a group of diseases has been identified that are believed to explain 30-40% of sudden deaths in young adults. These “ion channelopathies” affect the electrical functioning of a structurally normal heart. One of them, long QT syndrome, can cause sudden death “when a person is startled or suddenly awoken from sleep,” and catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia is liable to occur “while the person is exerting themselves or suffering emotional stress.”Extreme emotion can also lead to sudden death in people with subclinical cardiomyopathy or ischaemic heart disease, probably because of a ventricular arrhythmia caused by an outpouring of catecholamines. Such an outpouring can certainly lead to heart failure from myocardial stunning, even in people with apparently normal hearts.

It is all well and good, problem is if Padmé suffered from one of these conditions mentioned, she would not have been declared completely healthy, medically. She would also have recieved proper treatment. Had Padmé died in the wilderness somewhere or on board the ship, her death would have made sense, but Padmé died in a high tech medical facility where any of these conditions would be quickly discovered and treated.

It is all well and good, problem is if Padmé suffered from one of these conditions mentioned, she would not have been declared completely healthy, medically. She would also have recieved proper treatment. Had Padmé died in the wilderness somewhere or on board the ship, her death would have made sense, but Padmé died in a high tech medical facility where any of these conditions would be quickly discovered and treated.

Well, first of all, "those conditions" aren't diagnosed until autopsy. Second, those conditions aren't the complete picture--there are cases where people under those conditions die from unknown causes (though it's rare).

Third, even if true, death by heartbreak a trope from mythology, stage plays, and operas. You can't want it to be too much like real life--you might as well complain that Vader's suit is nonsense because they should have just given him replacement lungs and plastic surgery. (I recall reading how Lucas described Vader's suit as a "walking iron lung" some time in the '70s or '80s, but the iron lung was already quaint technology in the '60s.)

I have officially given up on this debate. If you can't see the flaw in your logic when you compare "losing the will to live" to losing an arm or child, or comparing Padme (who is medically fine) "giving up" (and how is "Losing the will to live" not giving up?) to having cancer...then I just can't argue with you.

I just....I just can't.

But needless to say I wholeheartedly disagree. But I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Well, first of all, "those conditions" aren't diagnosed until autopsy.

The reason being that the people who die from one of those conditions, do so because they are not in a hospital. If they manage to get to a hospital, blood samples and an ECG is essentially all that’s needed to diagnose the conditions.

Second, those conditions aren't the complete picture--there are cases where people under those conditions die from unknown causes (though it's rare).

True, but it doesn’t change the fact that if a young woman is admitted to a medical Clinique, she would never be declared completely healthy if she’s dying: “dying” and “medically, completely healthy” does not go hand in hand.

Third, even if true, death by heartbreak a trope from mythology, stage plays, and operas. You can't want it to be too much like real life--you might as well complain that Vader's suit is nonsense because they should have just given him replacement lungs and plastic surgery. (I recall reading how Lucas described Vader's suit as a "walking iron lung" some time in the '70s or '80s, but the iron lung was already quaint technology in the '60s.)

I think any piece of art should reflect real life – and I do find it odd, actually, that they couldn’t clone new organs and limbs for Vader and give him some plastic surgery, but we’re not discussing Vader but Padmé, and I don’t think you can compare the two because unlike Padmé, Vader suffered from several severe medical conditions.

But "will" is something we all have a choice of having. Do you have the will do call someone out or not? In this case Padme didn't have the will to live, she chose not to.

The flaw with this logic is that there is no "will to live" that works like that in real life. If you don't want to live anymore, you don't just drop dead. That doesn't work. So this is clearly a fantastical concept and a fantastical concept is not bound to rules in the real world. "The will" itself is a philosofical concept.
If the droid had said "She doesn't want to live anymore", it would be something else and clear. "She has lost the will to live" is not that clear.

But "will" is something we all have a choice of having. Do you have the will do call someone out or not? In this case Padme didn't have the will to live, she chose not to.

The flaw with this logic is that there is no "will to live" that works like that in real life. If you don't want to live anymore, you don't just drop dead. That doesn't work. So this is clearly a fantastical concept and a fantastical concept is not bound to rules in the real world. "The will" itself is a philosofical concept.
If the droid had said "She doesn't want to live anymore", it would be something else and clear. "She has lost the will to live" is not that clear.

The whole thing is pretty much crap. On top of the terrible writing, Natalie and Ewan did some of their worst acting.

The only positives I take out of it are the medical droids.

Agreed. It was rather unconvincing on the whole. That said, Portman did a very poor job trying to look pregnant. Most pregnant women waddle visibly because their center of gravity changes as their belly grows. Portman walked like a catwalk model.

I also thought that she died too easily and that all the "she lost the will to live" was silly.

It's great to hear some really sensible views on the matter. I agree that dying of a broken heart seems a little sappy. However, I wonder if this is a film certificate issue: as the story was unfolding and Aniken was having bad dreams of Padime dying, I predicted a Greek tragedy coming in the form and the irony of his decision to be a sith leads to her death.

So the emperor says to vader "it seems you killed her" confirming this Greek tragedy.

So my question is, is this a film certificate issue as if aniken had murdered her by strangulation and the babies were delivered before she perished, this would have to be an adult rating.

Dying of a broken heart is a bit more Disney and family friendly, besides in children's stories they are often an allegory or metaphor for something else.

So my question is, is this a film certificate issue as if aniken had murdered her by strangulation and the babies were delivered before she perished, this would have to be an adult rating.

Dying of a broken heart is a bit more Disney and family friendly, besides in children's stories they are often an allegory or metaphor for something else.

Ps please don't shred me to pieces, I'm new to this.

That's an interesting hypothesis. At least one EU book has alluded to "she died of strangulation" - I think book 2 in the Coruscant Nights series.

As to why the droids don't figure it out - that could be, as per your hypothesis, a film certificate issue.

But it helps if there's an "in-universe" answer as well- maybe they have no experience in dealing with Force-related injuries- and "lost the will to live" is a "stock answer" they give whenever they can't explain anything.

And either Bail or Obi-Wan knew about the place, so they obviously knew the doctors there, so they probably knew they were competent; they wouldn't take Padme to an incompetent doctor. So again, there was nothing wrong with her. She just decided not to live anymore, and that is bad writing.

So my question is, is this a film certificate issue as if aniken had murdered her by strangulation and the babies were delivered before she perished, this would have to be an adult rating.

Dying of a broken heart is a bit more Disney and family friendly, besides in children's stories they are often an allegory or metaphor for something else.

Ps please don't shred me to pieces, I'm new to this.

That's an interesting hypothesis. At least one EU book has alluded to "she died of strangulation" - I think book 2 in the Coruscant Nights series.

As to why the droids don't figure it out - that could be, as per your hypothesis, a film certificate issue.

But it helps if there's an "in-universe" answer as well- maybe they have no experience in dealing with Force-related injuries- and "lost the will to live" is a "stock answer" they give whenever they can't explain anything.

But that would make them alarmingly incompetent.

It's sad. But some doctors do display a high level of incompetence. Such as the doctor who was supposed to perform an amputation, and cut off the wrong limb.

I think I'll take Palpatine's words as gospel over the doctor's. Anakin killed her. Nothing else sits well with me. It's liberating to finally make a decision on this.

[[/quote]
I'll take Palpatine's words as gospel over the doctor's. Anakin killed her. Nothing else sits well with me. It's liberating to finally make a decision on this.[/quote]

Yes, I think that it should be interpreted that if Anakin had not choked her, she wouldn't have died. With the droids not finding a physical reason for her condition to deteriorate, we can firmly pin the blame on Anakin.

Whether the reasons thereafter were:
1. Symbiosis between Anakin and Padime (one dies, so does the other)
2. Jedi / Sith power that cannot be detected by droids and that kills her
3. She simply does die of a broken heart and a lack of will to survive

are irrelevant to the narrative of the story.

What I will agree on with people who dislike the end is that the story could have been clearer. Also the dialogue of the droids could have been more robot-like and factual, and that the 'losing her will to live' is too ambiguous. But It goes back to my point that it couldn't be made clear (on a kids film cert) if the original story board was for Anakin to strangle her to death with Sith will power.